GitLab removes its 'starter' tier: Users must either pay 5x more or lose features
- Reference: 1611752411
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/01/27/gitlab_removes_starter_tier/
- Source link:
GitLab CEO and co-founder Sid Sijbrandij [1]said yesterday: "The Bronze/Starter tier does not meet the hurdle rate that GitLab expects from a tier and is limiting us from investing to improve GitLab for all customers."
[2]
Hurdle rate? This is investment jargon. Sijbrandij linked to a definition which describes it as "the minimum rate of return on a project or investment required by a manager or investor." In other words, GitLab decided it was not making enough money on the $4.00 user/month subscription.
The company's [3]pricing handbook states reassuringly that "when in doubt, we will default to moving features to a lower tier" but the effect of the change is that any features in Bronze that are not in the free tier have been moved up.
[4]
We will definitely change to Github because there is no reason to pay 19$ for the few features we really need. Maybe [we] will hit the hurdle rate there
How many features? "Each PM went through the buyer based pricing model referenced above for each feature in Starter to determine whether they should be part of Core or Premium going forward. The issue is not public right now, but the output was that all but one feature will be in Premium," said GitLab [5]in response to a question .
Move up ... or back to free?
Sijbrandij said the price hoist will be mitigated by a transition offer. Existing customers with up to 25 users can renew for one more year at the existing $4.00 rate, or get a free upgrade to Premium along with a staggered discount at the next renewal: $6.00 on year 1, $9.00 year 2 and $15.00 for year 3. Larger customers get the mystery "contact your sales rep" treatment.
Some may manage with the free tier. Sijbrandij said that it has 89 per cent of the features in Starter. GitLab offers the free tier "for a single developer" and as an alternative to GitHub's free tier.
Starter, in the now-deleted description, was for single team usage. Features in Bronze that are in free include requiring approvals on merge requests, pipeline code coverage rates, iterations, assigning multiple people to issues, iterations, assigning weights to issues, repository mirroring, code quality reports, code review analytics and more.
The [6]discussion on GitLab's forum is as you would expect. "There is little explanation as to why a 5x increase in costs to maintain starter features on-prem is justified, beyond gaining additional premium features. It feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth" [7]said one customer.
Another [8]added : "We will definitely change to Github because there is no reason to pay 19$ for the few features we really need. Maybe will hit the hurdle rate there."
Others were more constructive. "Wouldn't it make more sense to have a base user pricing (dunno 4€/month) and add feature bundles?" [9]said a user.
One complication is that GitLab requires that all users in a group are on the same plan. "My department of 40 does the vast majority (90 per cent plus of all commits/MRs) of the coding in the company, but we enrolled everyone within operations as well so that they could contribute on occasion. The rest of those users are never going to be worth spending $19 a month on, but it really sucks having to put up barriers from people who do like to contribute on occasion," [10]said a user on Hacker News - though the company said it is [11]looking at this use case and may "iterate the pricing".
GitLab is in part an open source product, but the open source version is the same as the free tier, so it is not a way to add features unless developers fancy [12]forking the code .
Nobody expects .... the fivefold augmentation
The company does have a generous free tier, but the disturbing aspect of this is the uncertainty it introduces: price increases are expected but not fivefold increases. Source code is easy to migrate from GitLab to an alternative, but migrating all the other parts of a service that presents itself as a complete DevOps platform is difficult, so there is an element of lock-in.
GitLab is second only to Microsoft-owned GitHub in this market. GitHub is tough to compete with in part because of Microsoft's [13]financial clout and the fact that GitHub is more a strategic asset to win developers than a profit centre.
GitLab intends to become a public company and [14]states in its handbook that "the strength of our business model enables us latitude in selecting a favorable public offering environment and not be beholden to a specific date" – though there was a proposed date of November 2020, which it missed.
[15]
It is therefore possible that the company is endeavouring to improve its business model ahead of a public offering. In that light, forcing unprofitable customers either to go elsewhere or to pay more may make perfect sense, though it is not so good for the way it is perceived by the developer community. ®
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[1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/01/26/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_devops/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YBGcKcR4AqVBIWZPWHWIBwAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/pricing/#default-to-move-features-down
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_devops/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YBGcKcR4AqVBIWZPWHWIBwAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://forum.gitlab.com/t/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/45923/11
[6] https://forum.gitlab.com/t/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/45923/21
[7] https://forum.gitlab.com/t/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/45923/22
[8] https://forum.gitlab.com/t/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/45923/25
[9] https://forum.gitlab.com/t/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/45923/27
[10] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25918717
[11] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/213185
[12] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/27/microsoft_q2_fy2021_cloud/
[14] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/being-a-public-company/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_devops/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YBGcKcR4AqVBIWZPWHWIBwAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Everybody is doing it
But at least Netflix is rolling out new movies and shows (it's now one the largest production companies in the world,)
And remember this is not a price rise. It's an symbiotic enhancement of converging yet parallel synergies.
Re: Netflix
"But at least Netflix is rolling out new movies and shows"
But I don't care , not one shiate, about series television or Netflix' (equivalent of) Made for TV movies.
I want mainstream movie releases.
And ever since they insisted (from my perspective) of forcing their own productions down everyone throat, their theatre movie selection sucks bawls .
I've stopped watching. The only reason I've maintained my Netflix subscription is that my SO watches...but oh boy, do I want to tell them to go stuff themselves with their price increases and cancel my service. And if I can (finish) talking my SO into it...they're gone. So very, very gone.
Re: Netflix
What do you mean by "mainstream"? I'd say Nextflix productions are thouroughly mainstream at this point given all Oscars they are winning.
Re: mainstream
NO. When I joined Netflix the ONLY products they offered were streamed mainstream, from-the-theatre Hollywood releases.
NOW they offer almost NO new Hollywood releases, doing their own productions, yet expect me to not only maintain my membership but to pay MORE for them.
That. Is. NOT. What. I. Signed. Up. For.
THEY have fundamentally changed the nature of the service, actually reducing the products that I initially agreed to, yet charge me more whilst offering me less than the original agreement.
I discontinued cable TV for a reason : I do not WANT to watch series television. I consider it utter shiate, with writing utterly compromised by the desire to maintain an ongoing paycheck regardless of what they do to the plot or the characters in order to continue the gravy train of ongoing production. I signed up for streaming to get MOVIES. NOT MORE TV UNDER A DIFFERENT NAMEPLATE.
Re: mainstream
As I understand it, a lot of that has to do with major studios (as in traditional Hollywood ones, Netflix is a major itself now) refusing to license to Nexflix. Lots of people have come to prefer at home streaming over the theater experience, which doesn't really fit in to the major studios' desired business models. Now the studios want to you either go to a theater, purchase/rent streaming rights for movies individually, or subscribe to their own services.
Anyways, the outcome is the same: Netflix doesn't offer the titles you want. So, sure, by all means cancel them, but I don't expect you'll ever again see a reasonable priced streaming service that will allow all-you-can-watch content across a wide range of major studio productions. A large reason for that is the Hollywood studios themselves don't want you to have that.
Re: Everybody is doing it
> Can't help but think it's short term greed because nobody is interested in the long game these days.
It's the Internet - there is no long game. Your lunch can eaten at any time.
Re: Everybody is doing it
Netflix has for years had negative cashflow: it has borrowed massively to produce content and build out the network. 2020 looks like being the first year with positive cashflow and share buybacks have already been mentioned.
At least with Netflix it is easy to cancel.
Yes Amazon, you.
Self host git
It isn't really that hard and if you have more than a few users then the sysadmin/hosting costs will be quickly repaid.
Re: Self host git
Definitely - it's a shame that people seem to be reverting to their old "ignore the OpenSource solutions" ways and falling for Freemium scams...
Free as in Freedom, not as in Beer.
Re: Self host git
I think you're underestimating this significantly, and oversimplifying.
Yes it's fairly trivial to host git yourself, but if you're using Gitlab it _probably_ isn't just about the repos themselves.
Just like on Github, you've got
- Issue tracking
- Release management
- Merge/Pull request tracking (and/or approval)
- Continuous Integration pipelines
- Integrated per-project wiki
- The ability for non-techie managers to add a user (so they can edit a wiki, report issues, whatever)
- A bunch of other things
Sure, you can find solutions to stand each of those up - even running something like Gerrit if you want, but it's a lot less trivial than
- Download gitlab
- Run gitlab
And switching to alternatives is even harder once you're in and established on Gitlab, because you're going to have to migrate that data somewhere.
Gitlab as a product is actually quite nice, but the approach of Gitlab (the company) has always left a bit to be desired. It's also a bit too locky-in for my tastes too.
Re: Self host git
If all you want from Gitlab is hosting git repositories, you could self host, use the free tier, or run the open source version on prem. Gitlab is not about hosting git repos, its about the SDLC (software development life cycle). It's a docker registry, a terraform state storage system, a package registry, it runs CI/CD pipelines, and measures and monitors code quality, test results and security scanning. It does project management, managing bugs, epics, deadlines, project planning..
FWIW, we're affected - we're a 300 seat bronze level subscriber. It won't be fun to either pay an extra $4500 a month, nor re-implement all of that stuff..
Quelle
Surprise
Kind of a shame
I have a lowest paid tier account paid through my company. I neither need nor use the paid features, it was just a way to show support.
For that I could justify £50 a year but hardly £250.
Even if it's with less features, I reckon they really want a €5 tier.
Putting the Git into Gitlab
(see title)
As a Free tier user, I'd like to thank those of you paying for GitLab so I don't have to.
Have a free picture of a beer as a token of my appreciation.
Existing customers with up to 25 users can renew for one more year at the existing $4.00 rate, or get a free upgrade to Premium along with a staggered discount at the next renewal: $6.00 on year 1, $9.00 year 2 and $15.00 for year 3. Larger customers get the mystery "contact your sales rep" treatment.
This looks like an MBA had a lot of fun coming up with it. Not very useful for customers.
Everybody is doing it
Not making enough cash? Bump up the price.
I recently read that Netflix is upping its price too, and you'd have thought that with the many various lockdowns they'd be having their "best year ever".
Can't help but think it's short term greed because nobody is interested in the long game these days.